


Designs for Down to Agincourt

by TKodami



Category: Down to Agincourt - Fandom, Supernatural
Genre: Down to Agincourt, Fanwork of Fanwork
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 15:37:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4672025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TKodami/pseuds/TKodami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>These are the designs for seperis' mighty series, Down to Agincourt. Some of these designs are for in-world applications, some of them are for the fangroup that has coalesced around the fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Designs for Down to Agincourt

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Thousand Lights in Space](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2664854) by [seperis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seperis/pseuds/seperis). 



  
Original Flag with muted color scheme 

  
Updated Symbol with brighter colors 

The Chitaqua Rose is a badge design that I created for the _Agincourt Agitators Anonymous_ , a group devoted to various activities of fannish glee for _Down to Agincourt_. I posted the Rose along with a few other designs for A3 on my tumblr a few months back. Since my original faffing about, the Rose has taken on a bit of a life of its own--even getting its very own [felt version](http://consultingcas.tumblr.com/post/126603658562/this-is-my-entry-for-this-weeks-camp-chitaqua) for the Camp Chitaqua Games courtesy of consultingcas. When a few Agincourt Agitators put together their heads to puzzle out the symbolism, I decided that a response is in order.

Let it never be said that I am a productive, responsive artist (no, I am the Very Bad, Very Negligent sort); for when I originally posted the crest (at 2am; my sleeping habits are atrocious), I explained the crest thusly: 

> The crest might make more sense in-universe, or not. It’s a fusion of a sunflower & the York rose. I could go into more detail on the crest’s symbolism but for the sake of not being spoilery, I shall let it remain mostly unremarked. 

What an enlightening bit of text that was! Now I shall attempt to correct my previous error. The crest was posted after _Thousand Lights in Space_ had concluded; so warnings for spoilers through the first three books of _Down to Agincourt_. There probably shouldn't be anything surprising here to long-time readers, but nevertheless. You Have Been Warned.

**Anatomy of a Crest**

Let's start with a helpful diagram! The object I designed may be called a **badge** or **crest** , which are not interchangeable ideas in heraldry. But I'm going to play fast & loose with my terminology. It should be noted that the Chitaqua Rose is properly a **badge** because it does not belong to a particular person, or house, and it can be used or worn by anyone within a group of interest (in this case, Down to Agincourt fans).

There are four important parts to the badge, which I have noted in my diagram. They are the **sunflower** the **York Rose** , the **Red & Orange Chequy** and the **Stars**. Of further importance are the colors, specifically the **light brown** on the York Rose, and the **Red** of the Chequy. The brown of the flag's field is important insofaras I am a really big fan of earth tones. Aren't you?

 **Sunflower**. The sunflower was the core of the design. It is the state flower for Kansas. No matter what universe Dean's in, he's going to end up in Kansas. It's where the end of the world is supposed to happen (supposedly), but it sure looks like this is where the beginning of the new one will start. Once you tease apart that reference, you have Phil's imagery of Dean as the sun. I COULD NOT RESIST. The sunflower is therefore also Dean. But wait! In flower symbolism, instead of the sunflower being the object of worship, it is known as a flower of "adoration," because it turns its face towards the sun, and closes up at night. Seriously guys, there's a fuckton of poetry about the constancy of love being the sunflower. So it is also somehow Cas. With its sunflowerness and whatnot. God, don't look at me, it was 2am, swear to god.

 **York Rose**. The second base element of the badge was the York Rose. As many of you have already intuited, the York Rose is a) a part of the history of the Battle of Agincourt and b) also super-important to the dynastic succession wars of the Yorks  & Lancasters that then led to a marriage and combination of the two houses into the Tudor dynasty. I'm not saying that there's an extended marriage metaphor that I was trying to make, wherein the humans are Lancasters, and the angels are Yorks, but that's exactly what I'm saying you guys. GUYS.

Dig this: the York rose is traditionally white. The color symbolism of the York Rose is linked to liturgical Christian meanings of white, which are things like innocence, purity, holiness and ESPECIALLY for resurrection, e.g. Christ. While Dean has been party to some pretty miraculous "hey you're not dead any more moments," I would argue that it is Cas' restoration to life in S5 that is the most miraculous resurrection of the lot; Castiel would have had to have been brought back by God himself, and no one really knows exactly what the fuck God was thinking with that one, but it was a pretty nice move on His part.

Accepting for a moment that just like the Sunflower, the York Rose can equally symbolize either Dean or Cas, but I'm putting my money down on "Cas" for this one, just as I feel like the sunflower is likely more "Dean"-ish. The York Rose in this badge is tarnished. It's been faded from its white; it is touched by the brown color field behind it, and faded to a pale brown. The earth tones have thus tainted the rose, and made it closer to the dirt. If you're not feeling Fallen!Cas from that description, I don't know what else to tell you, but we can totally talk about it in the comments.

 **Red & Orange Chequy**. The checkerboard pattern is a heraldic way of dividing up space. But one of the most interesting parts of the chequy is that it cannot be subdivided or partitioned further; the chequy is its own whole, united space. This is at the core of the badge; within four walls or checkers that look a lot like barbed wire holding them in. Flashing back to the episode of "The End", part of Chitaqua's vaunted walls are in fact, just barbed wire fences. I had in mind Chitaqua at the very center of the badge, an undivided space. This is clearly not the Chitaqua of the past, which was divided into two camps: the one that Dean saw, and the one that was actually there (and tried to fucking kill Vera & Cas). This badge reaches instead for the Chitaqua of the _now_. The undivided Chitaqua that is unifying under Dean, and actually kind of sucking less. Heading into Book IV, this was me optimistically projecting my hope for the future. We shall see how that bears up.

Because I was picking colors with liturgical significance (I mean, we started with the rose, so why not keep going?), so the Red of the chequy is what it is traditionally used for in the church: the presence of God (you will pry God!Chuck from my cold dead fingers; however, I have no clue what Chuck's greater role is in Chitaqua, or whether he was conceived at a time when God!Chuck wasn't considered as popular a headcanon/canon); the blood of martyrs. Chitaqua has been bleeding for Dean for some time now. Maybe they need to start bleeding for the world. Or maybe NOBODY NEEDS TO. But let's be reasonable here. People we know are gonna die, and its going to rip our hearts out when they do.

 **Stars**. The small white points that orbit around the center of Chitaqua can be seen as either the books themselves, or the trade alliance--the innumerable towns, places, people, that will come to join in Dean's fight. They could also be seen as Dean's camps, but since there were more than 12 of those little suckers when I finished drawing them, I like the idea that they could represent the whole world.

So those were the main bits of my thinking as I was designing the badge. I'd love to hear your thoughts, comments, questions! 


End file.
